Armor of Ice
by Eirian1
Summary: Sara has left Joe. This is the fall out. (Inspired by events in Season 2 Episode 5)
1. Prologue

**Armor of Ice**

 _Author's disclaimer: I do not own Halt and Catch Fire and its associated characters. AMC does, for which, for the most part, they have my utmost respect. No copyright infringement is intended in writing these stories._

 _My deepest respect also goes to the talented actors that brought to life the characters we see in HaCF. My portrayal of the characters here is based on my perception of the work of Lee Pace, Scoot McNairy, Mackenzie Davis, Kerry Bishé, Toby Huss, Aleksa Palandino, and James Cromwell._

 _With the exception of personal interpretation and expansions, extracts from existing episodes of the series remain the copyright of the story and teleplay writers: Christopher Cantwell, Christopher C. Rogers, Jamie Pachino, Jason Cahill, Zack Whedon, Dahvi Waller, and Jonathan Lisco._

 _Other assorted original characters (i.e. those that don't really appear in the show) are my own creation, and they, along with the original material presented here are © Eirian Phillips 2015._

 _Story is rated for mature readers, according to whatever rating system is adopted these days for Fan Fiction. It changes on a site by site basis… It was so much easier way back when…_

 _Feedback is always welcome and comments/emails are usually answered._

 _Characters and events are purely fictitious, and any similarity to anyone living is entirely coincidental._

 ** _Prologue: Grace_**

The club was loud, dark and smoky, just the way he liked them and as if in defiance of the part of him screaming for abstinence, knocked back the last shot of Jack Daniels from the bottom of glass and took in a deep breath of the fetid air.

 _'Why the hell not?'_ he thought. He had abrogated responsibility for everything else through his life, knowingly and unknowingly, why not let the nicotine – and god only knew what else – ladened atmosphere pull another few years off his life. It was worthless anyway.

That's what she'd said, when he came to her; had always said, when they'd talked – that he abrogated responsibility, never looked inside himself to see the reasons why things happened, why he did what he did. Always blamed other people; too much _distance_ from _himself_ …

He'd done it when she told him she needed to leave.

 _The ink was barely dry, and should have held his attention as he walked into the room carrying the legal document like some kind of sacred text to present in deference to the one that held his heart; had helped him to_ find _his heart, and yet, the weight of the room drew his attention to her as she stood, staring out of the open slats of the blinds across the patio window, even though he didn't look at her._

 _He stopped, and raised his eyes; held out the papers, still only half looking at her, as if he already knew the way the conversation would go._

 _"Turn to the last page."_

 _She turned to him. He felt her reluctance in the way she almost turned away again, but over her shoulder her eyes fell on the papers, and from somewhere deep within – he recognized the depth of it in her – she asked, "Why?" glanced at him and then back at the pre-nup._

 _"Just… turn to the last page." She took it from him, he barely dared breathe, as she rifled the papers, opening them to the page at the back, where in the blue of all the bruises from his past, he had signed his name – signed away all else than the truth. "The only thing I'm after… is you."_

 _He watched her stare past the document, saw the stiffness in her back sag toward defeat as she let the final page fold closed, curled the papers in her hands and resumed, for a moment, her gaze through the window, then she stood, without looking at him turned and set the papers down on the chair, the back of which she had been perched on, and folded her arms. Her eyes closed as she drew breath to speak._

 _"I think… we need to slow things down," the measured way she took the future from his grasp slipped like a knife between his ribs, spilling dread inside of him as the axe he'd felt hanging over them since he entered the room fell, and shattered the fragile restraint that lay between them. His lips parted to take a painful breath, but she went on. "I think it's all going too fast," she closed her eyes again, looked away before looking back at him, "I just… need some room to figure it out."_

 _"Is this about Cameron?"_

 _"No it's about you." Her words were sharp; a knife blade – one cord that bound them cutting loose. He felt it drift, and nodded in the pain of understanding. "And maybe it's about me… too, I don't know."_

 _She wasn't looking at him. He couldn't take his eyes off her. Opposites again. Backward, so far back in such a short amount of time._

 _"I just need some time—"_

 _"Time, what does that mean?" His eyes dropped from her, hit the ground with his heart – breaking open._

 _"I'm going back to Austin."_

 _"For how long?" The exchange came thick, fast; she looked up at him and he at her, their eyes met and everything stopped. Could she not see his pain?_

 _She held his gaze for barely a moment before she shook her head, a strange, twisted expression entering her face. "I don't know."_

 _He felt the heat of the flood inside him rising, his eyes stung with the tears that came to them as she said the final words, "I'm sorry."_

 _It didn't sound as though she were._

 _He couldn't breathe, he couldn't move. The slow, steady clump of her footsteps on the wooden floor like a funeral march over the ache that he, again, became. He staggered under the weight of it._

He wasn't the kind of man to cry, but he had. Tears of loss. Tears of anger. Tears of self-righteous indignation and finally an agony of self-loathing until his head ached and his nose bled from the number of times he'd blown it through his desolation.

Then he'd picked himself up, dressed in ice and pushed on… except that the ice kept melting, as now; staring out across the crowded club to where his personal, self-destructive drug of choice surrounded herself with her latest cabal of hero-worshippers and hangers on, living it up, knocking back the youthful elixir, and laughing.

 _'Laughing at me.'_

That wouldn't do.

He pried himself from where he was leaning, swung by the bar, downed a second double Jack Daniel's in a single long swallow, and then turned – predatory, sheathed in ice once more, to prowl across the edge of the dance floor; mask of a smile firmly affixed to his handsome face – beneath his eyes.

He saw her as the rainbow reflected off the mirrored ball turning overhead cast a multi-colored arrow across the white of her shirt; loose, free – hanging over the waistband of an equally flowing skirt. Dark hair fell across her shoulders like a river of memory; a slight curl, the promise of wildness in the haphazard way it wrote _remember me_ across her collar bone.

"Hey," he stopped, and leaned against the pillar beside her, looking down at her in a way that sent her friends scattering to the corners of the dance floor. One, he noted, touched her elbow before she left, and her slender fingers gestured her away; confidence or bravado? "Can I refresh that for you?"

He nodded to the glass she held in her other hand. She shrugged, but her eyes were hungry, a reflection of his own ravenous need, trapped behind the very shield he'd raised against it. He could do this; slipped an arm around her waist and tugged her closer. The shock of her warmth ran over him with all the tenderness of a sledgehammer. Green eyes met his and held a space of time before she pushed him back. _Not so fast,_ they told him, even as he persisted and covered her fingers with his own, large hand, sliding the glass from her hand, and guiding her back toward the bar with him. She went willingly, leaned against the bar at his side as he gestured to the bar tender to refill her glass, and to bring him the same.

"Joe," he told her. No need for second names in the impermanence of the moment.

"Grace," she said, then surprised him as she went on. "I've seen you here before."

Spider web cracks began to run from the top of his head and he became the spinning mirror ball before he caught himself. Green. Her eyes are _green_.

"Oh?" Non-committal question, he wouldn't give head to his rising curiosity.

She nodded, and took a pull of the light beer she'd ordered. "Hard to miss."

Appeal to his vanity – just who was playing whom? He knew he should just walk away – this was playing with fire. Instead he moved closer, framing her with his arms against the bar. This time she didn't push him back.

Her mouth was cold beneath the heat of his, her taste the bitter-sweet of the beer that he took from her hand and set blindly on the top of the bar, to possess her with both hands. Her fingers reached up to tangle in his hair as he devoured her, stealing the very air from her lungs until she pulled away breathless, and he gasped to fill his own even as he picked up his glass and half drained it.

"Come with me," he half growled, tugging at her wrist, all but crushed in his hand, and the mirror-ball-Joe spun again, chips falling free as he moved – no. Her eyes are _green_ – trusting she would follow.

* * *

"Joe!"

The voice was hot like opium, but too alive, like the spark of an arc weld that stilled the motion in his legs. Had he chosen this route across the club toward the door purposefully, to bring the two of them within the range of her sight?

"What, no date?"

The sarcasm stung, amplified by the smugness resonating like the pulse of electricity he'd once used to excite the both of them. He would have answered, but the lead weight behind him suddenly eased and the short brunette, with the unruly-memory hair moved around him, to the front, and stuck out her hand.

He didn't hear the words exchanged; stepped closer behind and slid both of his arms round the top of her shoulders. Demonstrative. Possessive. Lacking from before.

"…you're leaving already?" A verbal shrug in the cocaine smile, and his blood boiled. Didn't she care? She had. He'd seen it before her cheery congratulations underscored just how she hadn't moved on.

"Of course," the surface of his words was smoother than the stiffening current that roiled beneath. Uncomfortable he shifted closer to the woman in his arms, and the movement brought no ease. "We have places to be, Sar—"

She ducked under out from under his embrace, turned to hold his gaze for barely a moment, a strange expression twisting her face into a parody of a smile. Shit. Her eyes are—

"Goodnight, Joe!"

The verbal slap physically moved him, and unbalanced, he took a step before he caught himself, drew upright.

"I guess not." Cameron laughed without a sound, and dismissed him too, returning to the fawning attentions of those around her. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. Laughter followed him as he turned rapid steps to follow Grace.

No one walked away from him…

…but Sara had.

* * *

"Grace, wait!"

The cold in the air hit him the moment he stepped into the parking lot and left his head swimming. _Christ!_ How much had he had already? Not nearly enough. Green.

Grace faltered and he caught her arm by the wrist.

"What _is_ this?" he asked, holding fast as she tugged against his hold, "Grace…"

She stopped and turned to face him.

"Who _is_ she to you, Joe?" she admonished.

"Nothing." A lie.

Green eyes shook her head, "Don't lie to me. Not with what you're asking."

"What do you want me to say?"

She started walking, heading for a row of cars. He followed. What was it about this woman? Even as he asked it, he knew the answer.

 _"What_ is _she to you, Joe?"_

 _He blinked, surprised when the movement of his lashes freed chilled drops to track downward on his cheeks. Three days of almost constant conversation, and very little sleep and he still felt like the proverbial dam and the cracks were more than showing. He felt her hand close around his, and allowed her to tug him toward the lounger… encourage him to sit, and then…_

 _"Sara—" she straddled him, resting her hands on his shoulders to steady herself as she settled._

 _"Sssh," she said quietly, against his protests, murmured against the kiss she brushed to his brow. "Just answer the question."_

 _"Nothing… she nothing to me." He closed his eyes feeling the warmth of her, soothing… the promise of redemption, something more._

 _"You can tell yourself that, Joe, and lie to yourself all you want, but I know you better than that, and I won't hear them. No lies, no deceit…"_

"No secrets," he murmured.

"Excuse me?" Grace frowned up at him, coming to a stop beside a beat up old station wagon. He jarred to a halt.

"Nothing," he said, stepping closer, "Forget I even—"

"You're a man _made_ of secrets," she cut him off, "and _raised_ on lies."

"Then why are we still here?" he growled, denial of her words falling hollow inside of his brittle shell.

She shrugged, and raised an eyebrow, challenging softly, "You're the one that followed _me,_ remember? Why _are_ we still here? Inside – sure – I was just a piece of ass to try and make tall, blonde and snarky just that little bit jealous. Now…?"

Now she was playing with him, and the animal instinct reared in protest. He stepped closer and she trailed off, stepping back against the car, and he framed her, arms either side as he leaned down to take her mouth – the mouth that spoke uncomfortable truths that echoed those more gently spoken – and make it his… trying to forget that she had _green_ eyes.

* * *

He kicked the door closed behind them, filling his hands with the feel of her… his mouth with the taste of her, hard where he pressed against her, breathless where his lips and teeth grazed across her shoulder; alternately pushing at her hands as she tried to peel away the leather of his jacket to pin her to the hallway wall, and mapping the straight lines and curves of her body.

She moaned his name as he released her mouth. Still full of the taste of her, he hushed her; half shuffling, half lifting her along the hallway, and through the open door into her bedroom. He shrugged out of his jacket, letting it fall to the floor. Taking her hands, he brought them down his body to the button of his fly, feeling the tremor in her fingers against the heat of his risen need as she tugged the button open and slipped her hand inside; grasped him through his shorts. He moaned deeply into the following kiss, pushed himself against her hand, moving to catch her touch. How he needed to bury himself inside her – lose himself and his pain to their mutual need.

He broke the kiss, removed her hands and would have turned her to face the wall, save for the softness of her repeated whisper of his name. Instead he lifted her again, took the few steps from the doorway around which their heated caresses had rolled them, and lowered them both to the foot of the bed, lying back even as he guided her lips to another searing kiss.

His tongue plunged into her mouth, a mirror of the desire to plunder the sweetness of her sex. The thought drew another deep moan from the seat of his need, and as she pushed at the snug fit of his jeans. He rolled above her, then reaching between them to free himself still further, and to gather the folds of her skirt against his wrist, guided the head of his aching length between her soaked folds and with a strong, sure roll of his hips, claimed her – filled her – sank deep within the well of her wet heat and with a soft cry, stilled.

"Don't," she gasped against the side of his neck and arched beneath him, the breath and the invitation to take her deeper still burned straight to his loins. "Don't stop."

Unlocked, he drew back and rocked them with the sudden ferocity of the ensuing rut. Breath came hot and fast; perspiration matched the exertion of their passion, and when her fingers moved against his shirt, he caught her wrists, pinned her arms away from the fastenings and took her mouth in a deep kiss to swallow her sighs of appeal, and moaning nipped at her lips as he felt himself begin to come unraveled; surrendered to the rush of pleasure and sank against her as he flooded her within, to the straining beat of his icy heart. When he could move, he pulled away, rolled aside and threw his arm across his face, still breathing hard, unmoving and unmoved as she turned to pillow her head against his chest.

He hadn't meant to sleep, but exhaustion, - he couldn't remember when last he'd slept – laid the weight of his release over him like a blanket, and he dozed, waking only when the tangle of his pants pinched, disturbing the mockery of rest.

Squinting at the clock on the nightstand, and moving slowly to free the ache in his shoulder, still raised across his face, he moved carefully, trying not to disturb the warm body at his side as he slipped from beneath her. Her fingers closed around his wrist as he sat up. A tug prevented him from standing.

"It's okay. You don't have to—"

He turned back to her, leaned over to kiss her _almost_ softly, almost allowed himself to feel – the ice had long since melted.

"I gotta go," he murmured, his voice quiet, thick with the burden of his actions, his mouth brushing with hers one last time before he stood and walked away; kept walking until the slam of the door behind him was not that of an innocent lamb to his slaughter, but was his own.

He shrugged out of his clothes as he passed, ghostlike, through his apartment, stepped naked into the shower, and turned on the water. Then he sank to sit, knees to scarred chest, head back against the tiles, shaking with breathless sobs as the rising steam drowned the evidence of his distress.


	2. Act 1

Armor of Ice

 _Act 1: Cameron_

The measured steps he took matched the pounding in his head. The clip clip clip of his heels on the tiled floor like the ticking of the clock that marked and counted every second that took him further into the abyss.

"Good Morning Mister MacMillan."

"Hold all my calls," he told his secretary without breaking stride. "I don't want to be disturbed."

He reached his office door, pushed it open with the palm of his hand and caught the edge of it before it could swing back and make any sound that might further exacerbate the near unbearable ache behind his eyes.

Then he added, "And cancel my two-thirty."

"They called to ask if they could put it back until three."

"Then tell them that three is inconvenient," he snapped, becoming irritated with the need to repeat himself over and over. "No calls, no meetings – nothing."

He didn't wait for an answer, nor an argument, simply closed the door behind him, crossed to the double picture window and turned the slatted blinds to shut out a good portion of the light, and then sank into the black leather of the chair behind his desk. He put his head back for a moment, allowing the cool of the plush chair to sooth the fire burning in the back of his neck, then reached for the desk drawer to pull out a nearly empty bottle of Tylenol.

Sitting up, he cradled his head in one hand as he shook two of the pills out onto the blotter atop his desk; reached for them one at a time, then swallowed them dry, coughing slightly as he moved to return the pill bottle to the drawer. He stretched out blindly to pour a splash of water from the decanter on the corner of the desk into an glass, and swilled down the pills before he returned to leaning back against the chair.

The same cold, tight band wrapped around his heart and stilled his breathing as memories of the night before flashed across his aching eyes, as they had when he came down from the temporary high the almost painful need that had driven him had given. Barely three months had gone and already he could reach for another? What kind of faithfulness was that? How could he confess to something so base and bestial as that? How could he not? They didn't keep secrets.

 _Like estranged book ends they sat, each on their own side of the bed, their back to the center, the same burning cold around his heart had possessed him then, and he felt_ filthy _with it; rotten to the core and terrified – strange to him after so long – of all that it could mean._

 _"The plot thickens," she said, and he felt the arrow of her words find its mark._

 _He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to find a path through the tangle of weeds he'd sewn in a once fertile garden._

 _"It was Gordon's stipulation."_

 _"You know how this looks?" she said, and he heard her turn, but dare not turn himself._

 _"Yeah," he half whispered, his voice falling as he nodded and closed his eyes again._

 _"Bad," she said softly, then slightly harsher, "It looks bad."_

 _He turned then with a sigh, looked at her,_ made _himself look her in the eye, she looked away. Looked down, and in appeal he explained, "I would've told you, but I wanted to show you the finished product." He shook his head, and went on, "It was_ stupid _, but I w—thought you'd be impressed."_

 _"I am."_

 _For a moment their eyes met, intensifying the pain and expression of that pain that sat upon his face, then she moved. Shuffled across the bed toward him, to rest her hand on his arm and slip her other arm behind his back; holding him, and the tight band around his heart began to ease its strangle hold that almost stopped his breath._

 _"We don't keep secrets," she said, her eyes locked with his, then shook her head, breaking the calming breeze her gaze was to him, "I don't care how small. I can't do it."_

 _The cooling, gentle glide of her fingers down his arm, along his forearm to his hand, where her digits drowned in his as she linked their fingers was a lifeline, and he covered their joined hands with his other. Then raised the back of her hand to his lip to press a small kiss of apologetic promise to her skin, never once taking his eyes off her face. Then he drew her close as he leaned in to her, to rest their heads together. His eyes closed until he felt her settle; breathed her in, and at her sigh opened his eyes._

Turning his head to the still open drawer, he reached within as he lifted his head from the back of the chair and pulled out a sheet of paper, pulling the chair closer to the desk on coasters that ran smoothly across the unseen chasm between heart and mind.

Setting the paper down on the blotting pad he picked up the ink pen, inscribed his address and the date – his address? _Their_ address – and wrote:

 _Dear Sara,_

 _Since you left, I don't know where my heart and mind have been. The emptiness has drawn me back into old way, old patterns and I—_

He stopped, read what he had written and with a heavy hand gathered the paper into a crumpled ball, which he dropped into the waste paper basket, before taking out another sheet of paper, and started over.

 _Dear Sara,_

 _I'm sending this to our PO Box because I want to give it every change to reach you. I tried calling after you left, and there was no answer, I even called to ask—_

Again he crushed the missive into an unsightly mess, like some embodiment of the way he felt inside, and tossed his second effort to the waste basket. Three more times he started and faltered, failed and consigned the flawed expression of his buried emotion to the trash. She'd told him, when he wrote the Clarks, and Cameron to write with his heart and not with his head, but how could he do that when his heart misgave him and was broken anyway, like his ability to express himself it seemed.

On last time he drew out a sheet of paper, and with a deep breath, closed his eyes and started to write.

 _Dear Sara,_

 _I write this letter in abject poverty of spirit. I have betrayed our love. I could probably sit here and as I always do, as you so rightly called me on it several times over, place the blame on others, self-righteously insist that it wasn't my fault and that I was encouraged and misled, goaded even into doing as I did, but that wouldn't be the truth. The truth is I betrayed our love and reached for another._

 _I know that my telling you that will have hurt you beyond measure, and I can neither ask, nor deserve your forgiveness. Another truth, then. Without you, I am a broken man…_

As if some expression of a holy spirit had possessed him, he wrote with passion and utter veracity, laying himself bare, his literate sobs loud in black against the crisp white of the paper. Black like his soul. She might have saved him once. He might have been redeemable, but… no more.

No more.

* * *

"There's no sense getting all bent out of shape about it," John Bosworth trailed behind the tornado that Cameron had become since opening the mail that morning, trying to get her to stop; to stand still long enough for him to get through to her. At that, she rounded on him.

"Oh yes there is. There's _every_ point," she snapped, "He was planning this all along-didn't I say we were just some kind of pawn in his latest game?"

She slapped the sheet of headed note paper into the middle of his chest, and spun away again to the desk she had stopped beside and began rifling through stacks of papers and note pads, and opening and closing draws, before she let out a screech of frustration from the back of her throat.

"Damn it, why now?" she threw up her hands and started toward another of the many desks that littered the nooks and crannies of the Mutiny headquarters, muttering as she went, "…struggling to keep up, Donna's away—"

"Whoa now," Bos interjected, "Donna's got nothing to do with this. You of all people should know that… just took some personal—"

"Well it's inconvenient," she snapped, "Where is that contra—"

"Cameron," A softer voice, the accent more subtle too cut in over top of Cameron's frantic muttering, and Tom stepped into the room that Bos now noticed all the other members of the Mutiny staff had vacated in favor of other, safer, playgrounds. "Why don't you let _me_ deal with this? Let _me_ go talk to him."

The suggestion, ludicrous as it was even to Bosworth's mind, at least stopped Cameron in her tracks. She straightened up like the proverbial and glared at Tom as though she meant to eviscerate him with her eyes.

"No," she napped, "Are you crazy? There's no way I'm letting you—"

"Why?" he asked softly, "Because he's your ex? Because you—"

"All right, Children," Bos took that as he cue to step in, not wanting what was already an impossibly tense situation to escalate into the usual fireworks that went off whenever Joe MacMillan was mentioned around there.

"You," he said pointing to Tom and then to the adjacent room, "Get back to work." Then slightly more softly, and taking her arm and turning Cameron toward the kitchen said, "You. My office… now."

To his surprise, she walked almost meekly into the kitchen. Taking a deep breath, then letting it out as a sigh, he followed. As soon as he reached the kitchen, Cameron rounded on him.

"Bos we _can't_ support this, and he _knows_ that. He's been playing us the whole time. Playing _me,_ and I walked—"

"Just… stop," Bos said, "I want you to stop talking and just listen to me for a second." He waited for long enough to realize she was not going to stop, so reached forward and grasped her hands, enfolding them gently in his. "Listen to me."

She took a breath, closed her mouth and clamped her lips in a tight line – not quite the receptive attitude he'd hoped for, but he knew her well enough to know that it was as good as it was going to get. He thought he saw a flicker of something flash across her eyes, and he features creased into a frown and he let go of her hands.

"Cameron, don't even go there, girl, y'hear me? You do not need that kind of messed up… bullshit. We've been here before," he said, fixing her with an expectant expression, as if daring her to contradict him. "We weathered the storm before, we will do again, but I tell you what we will _not_ do, what _you_ will not do. You will _not_ allow him to get under your skin. Minute you do that, we lose any chance we might have of finding a way through this. You know that. I told you before, you know _him_ and you're better than that. Ten times better than that."

He held out his hand for the papers she still clutched, crumpled in her hands and with a sigh, she handed them over to him.

"Now go… take a shower – take a bubble bath or something, just…" he looked down at the papers and started to read as he said, "Calm the hell down."

* * *

Not for the first time in the last several months, he picked up the envelope containing the clippings and the report that he'd paid good money – _wasted_ good money – on obtaining. He shook out the contents onto the top of his desk, picking the newspaper clippings, written telephone messages, photographs, and the full, typed report from the private investigator he'd hired, one at a time, and looking at each, his face creased in disdain.

 _Nothing but a never ending series of broken promises and failed undertakings._ The thought tightened the band around his chest, a band of anger, of disappointment and bitterness that he used to fuel the banishment of the thought that this did nothing but reflect badly on him.

No… he'd sat idly by for far too long already, been little better than some kind of high classed stalker. Well now it was about time he acted, and brought the ungrateful little cur to heel!

He stabbed the button on the intercom on his desk.

"Mary, I left a number on your desk this morning. Get him for me please."

He sat back, steepling his fingers together, running thoughts through his head, quashing a stab of guilt that threatened to stay his hand, and spare the young couple the heartache he was bound to unleash.

A click, and the phone rang once, he picked up the receiver to the announcement from his secretary of the connected call and the awaiting recipient. With one more breath to banish the lingering hesitation, he told her to connect the call.

"Peter, good morning… MacMillan, Joseph MacMillan, I have a proposition for you. Some business I'd like to put your way…"

* * *

He heard her voice before his office door flew open and Cameron burst in like a summer squall, trailing his secretary who was still protesting that she could not come in.

He sat back, away from the letter and envelop he had just finished writing, leaning back in his chair – adopting an air of unconcerned, sardonic amusement, and watched as Cameron slapped several sheets of paper onto the top of his desk, and leaned forward onto its leather surface, knuckles white against her fisted hands, as though she meant to beat the answer to her question out of him.

"Just what the hell is this… Joe?"

She said his name with all the sarcasm and vehemence that had ever existed between them. Still he did not move, simply met the icy fury in her eyes and, completely ignoring her, assured his secretary of no wrongdoing on her part.

Still Ruth apologized again, and backed out of the room, closing the door behind her. Once she'd gone, and only then, did Joe reach out to pick up the papers Cameron had all but thrown onto his desk, setting the completed letter that lay beneath it to one side, before he shuffled through the ten page, 'variance of contract' that West Group Legal had insisted he send.

"It's nothing," he said, sliding the stack of paper back toward where Cameron still leaned, breathing hard, against his desk. Then with a breath unfolded to his full height, letting the chair roll backward, away from him. "Precisely what this little outburst of yours is going to get you."

"What the—" he ignored the way she broke off, and walked with cold calculation across to the office door, to flip the lock, and then head toward the windows, even as she continued, "How can you say it's nothing? Everything Mutiny's ever worked for, everything _I_ worked for—"

"Amounts to nothing," he interrupted calmly, turning the blinds already half closed, still further; enough to let in the light, but deter the casual onlooker. There was nothing _casual_ about this moment, "If I say it does."

"You—"

"That's what all this is about, isn't it? He gestured to the office door as he turned, "That's what you're afraid of."

"Afraid?"

"Yes."

"Of You?"

He shrugged, looking down at his fingers as if inspecting a piece of lint caught under his nails.

"This is people's _lives_ … again—"

"Their lives, their livelihoods," he agreed, stepping away from the window toward her. "But that's what you wanted, isn't it? Control. To control me – control Mutiny? For everyone to leave you alone?"

"I can't believe that even you would—"

Steps away from her he leaned down just enough to half whisper to her, interrupting again, never relinquishing control, "You should be careful what you wish for Cameron. I'm cutting you loose. West Group doesn't _need_ Mutiny any more."

He straightened up, half stepped back out of reach of her arms just as she lashed out toward him.

"Bastard!" she spat all but leaping his way.

He caught her, almost mid leap; pushed back, angling them both toward the bank of file cabinets to the right of the desk.

"You can't _do_ this," she growled through clenched teeth, struggling with him even as he moved her bodily, keeping her at arms' length. "We have a deal – a contract."

"Had," he answered, coming to an abrupt halt against the cabinets, "It's done. We're finished. Through."

"No!" she pushed, twisting a hand free, almost landed a blow before he caught her wrist again. "If this is about last night… Did you catch up to her, Joe? Was she good enough? Did she make you forget—?"

She cried out as he spun her around, without warning, pressed closer as the liquid ice of his emotion cascaded over him. Hurt, anger, the memory of her mocking laughter, the heat, the smoke; another time, another place…

She fought his hold, got a hand free and reached behind her, pulling him closer still, reaching him, touching him.

"We're good together, we can do this," she encouraged him, "Forget Wheeler. You know Mutiny could be _ten_ time better than anything he could—"

…another reality.

Frigid and hot at the same time, a red haze blindsided him, he released her enough that she could turn and before he could catch up to himself, his hands were in her hair, hers in his; his mouth pulled at hers until breathless – her fingers working at the buckle of his belt – he drew a line of hot, wet kisses toward her ear.

Hands worked at fastening, at fabric, brushing flesh, bruising flesh, she cried out again as he caught her hands and pulled them from his body, pushed her back against the file cabinets again, her hands above her head, out of control from the hurt, but refusing to _relinquish_ control, watching the shock of raw, naked confusion that bordered on panic entering her eyes as he pinned her in place, in anger rather than, as once, in passion and mirrored need… remembered.

 _"There comes a time, Joe, when someone has to say the hard words. The ones that no one wants to hear; no one really wants to say. And you embrace the pain they bring, and you mourn the losses of the things that end with the speaking of them, but in the end, when the pain fades, you find that little bit of authenticity, of self-awareness, of accepting that you, not others, are responsible for what comes in its wake."_

 _Her hands, tiny hands, and cold –_ he remembered the cold – _slipped up over his back to draw him against the warmth of small her frame._

 _"Talk to me," she whispered. "Be a man… say the words, I promise I won't let you fall."_

A breath… and he released a wrist to grasp a handful of her hair; to pull her head back and separate her from him completely.

"What's the matter, Cameron?" he said, breathing hard, but slowing the heaving of his breast by sheer strength of will. "Rendon not man enough for you?"

She opened her mouth, but no sound followed the breath of air from her mouth. He let her go and stepped away, running his fingers through his hair to bring the chaos to order; straightened his clothing; refastened his belt.

He moved further then, to pick up the sheaf of papers still on the top of his desk.

"I think you'll find the details of West Groups exit strategy are fully explained, and the contract makes sufficient provision for the expected timeframe." Crossing to the door, he flipped the lock again, and released the catch, drawing the door ajar. "Personally, I think that Mister Wheeler has been more than generous, all things considered."

Then he opened the door, uncaring that Cameron had no choice but to scramble to make herself presentable again, and with a viper smile, echoed the words of almost three months previously.

"Cameron… always a pleasure."

* * *

It always seemed to her to get dark so quickly around there, once dusk had come. She was cutting it fine, she knew she was, to get back to the trail safely and head home. The climb had been steep on the way up and she couldn't afford a fall on the way down.

She closed her small hands into tight fists at her side to keep from making the obvious gesture at the thought, and with a sigh, climbed to her feet with one last look at the lights of the city from the heights, and out the other way into the gathering dark, and she the pin between the two of them.

Not for the first time, she questioned her decision, and that brought down a cascade of emotion over her like the small stones under foot that rolled faster and faster downhill, helter skelter. She caught the audible sob on the back of her hand and she leaned against a tree to catch her breath.

She tried to convince herself, even now, that she couldn't identify the moment when she'd realized that the only thing she could do to save herself, to save _him_ , was to leave, even though all she wanted was to stay. She wasn't even sure, if she were honest just which of them she had truly done it for, for herself, for Joe, for—

"I thought I'd find you up here."

She jumped at the sound of the voice, then swiped at the wetness on her cheeks. She didn't want Lilian of all people to know where her thoughts had been. She turned a querying frown her friend's way, then shielded her eyes from the glare of the flashlight in the woman's hands.

"You left that journal of yours open," Lilian said, "And I figured you'd wait until the last minute to pick your way down."

"You _read_ it?" her heart and stomach lurched in place, leaving her swimming in nausea and rising anger. "How _dare_ you!" She pushed away from the tree and then drawing level with the other woman paused a half step and in a low tone of disappointment said, "I thought I could trust you."

She continued down the trail, ignoring the footsteps that crunched behind her until Lilian caught her arm and bodily pulled her to a halt, and fixing her with an earnest gaze said, "Well then I guess you're oh-for-two."

She recoiled in shock to hear it so coldly spoken, and the words she'd written only that afternoon came flooding back to her.

 _"I trusted him, and it wasn't that he betrayed that trust, though over the course of two days, he gave me cause enough to think he had. Did it hurt that I discovered he had gone behind my back, and set up the time share at West Group without my ever knowing about it? I would be lying if I said it didn't, but I understood – even as the words came out of his mouth in explanation, knew him; knew what he would say, that he wanted to impress me. Impress me? I already love him more that there are words to express._

 _"Was I afraid when I saw the gulf of unresolved feelings between him and Cameron? Of course I was, but not for myself – more for_ him. _She's bad news, with a huge chip on her shoulders - believing that the world owes her a living just because she has a natural talent for her work. I can't deny she's good at what she does, I wouldn't want to, but Joe identifies with that, like some kind of feedback loop because of having had to struggle his whole life with an emotionally abusive father whom he was trying to appease. In some ways they're two sides of the same coin, and when they're together in the same space everything stands on edge and is cut to ribbon – including the both of them._

 _"No… I think it was the moment that he brought the signed prenup to me, that I truly knew the only way I could keep him safe any more, from himself, from my father, from_ me _, was to leave. Without me there, he has to unlock once more, the side of him we'd worked so hard to leave behind. He'll succeed, and I can vainly hope, perhaps, that some of the man he truly is will temper the raw, destructive ambition that drives him so hard, but leaves him so empty."_

"Damn it, Sara, _when_ will you accept that he's not coming after you; that you're better off without him?"

"Forget it, Lilian," she sighed deeply, reaching out to disengage her friend's fingers from her arm, too tired to fight any more. "I just want to go home. I need to lie down and just… sleep."

"Are you not feeling good?"

She shook her head at Lilian's instant softening toward concern, her face a tired reflection of the expression that had been on her face when she last spoke to Joe. The one that painted her for the hypocrite that she truly was in leaving as she did, without a word that she'd intended to say being spoken.

"I'm just tied, Lilian. I'm fine," she answered.

If only he hadn't signed the prenup.

 _But no –_ she had written – _there's another consideration now, and for that reason if for no other, I can't let myself stay caught between the devil that is my father, and the deep blue sea of my love for Joe._


End file.
